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"Shotgun Draw!"
Dealing with 'The Demoralizer' and Fixing the Fledgling Football
Fan Base in Hoya Blue's New Era (Part 4)

By John Hawkes

On this particular wind-swept NFL Sunday afternoon in October, I’m standing in the middle of a sea of artificial turf and practice goals on Kehoe Field watching dozens of Hoya Hooligans compete in a charity soccer tournament. One team I’m paying particularly close attention to is in the middle of crushing an opponent 3-0. They feature several of the core members of Hoya Blue's soccer fan base, and they're named after a popular descriptive cheer heard in the student section at games.

They're called Team “We Play Sexy Football”.

As I paced around what must have roughly corresponded to the north end zone when the Georgetown football team still played their games on Kehoe Field, a thought hit me.

I was likely standing a few yards from the spot where in the year 2000 Gharun Hester ran a tight slant route and hauled in a bullet pass from Dave Paulus on the final play of regulation to pull Georgetown improbably back into a 50-50 tie with Butler and set the stage for a memorable overtime victory on Homecoming Day. Team We Play Sexy Football kicked off from nearly the exact spot where the following season a blocked extra point attempt turned into an 82-yard two-point conversion and the difference in a 15-13 Homecoming victory over Duquesne.

Was there something magical beneath the concrete and astroturf veneer of this corner of Georgetown's venerable football field in the sky?

Or was there something depressing about the fact that the last time the phrase “We Play Sexy Football” had been relevant was when the Hoyas were still playing football games on Kehoe Field?

In any discussion of reasons why a football culture has failed to take hold at Georgetown, some combination of pedestrian playcalling and unsexy results will always dominate. The recent brand of Hoya football has been likened rather eloquently by one fan to a “glacier with turnovers”.

There are plenty of viewers who watch National Geographic documentaries on glaciers. These folks, die-hards in their own way, are however far outnumbered by those who watch documentaries about shark attacks.

Much like a glacier, only time will produce subtle changes in form and movement for the Georgetown offense under its new Head Coach and staff of coordinators. For the time being, as supporters and interested observers of Georgetown football, our job is to recognize the most significant issues holding up student football culture. Even if we don't have the power to change some of them immediately, we can certainly begin to chip away at the face of others.

The on-field product is such an issue. There are three elements of the on-field performance of the Georgetown football team currently holding up student football culture. They all begin with the letter S—and shockingly, none is the “Shotgun Draw!”

Style

Thus far, the Hoyatalk thread about this column series has produced a number of choice phrases used to describe the Georgetown style of play. Hoya fans have lamented a “near unwatchable product,” “boring games,” and a “consistently weak team” among other things.

Harsh as these statements may be, there is a solid statistical base to back them up. The Hoyas are in the midst of a streak of 17 of 19 games without scoring in the first quarter. Only a late field goal by David Corak against Lehigh prevented the Hoyas from putting up a blank slate in the first quarter for the entire 2006 home schedule; in the first halves of home games this season, Georgetown put up a modest 17 points.

In the five games played at the Multi-Sport Facility in the 2006 season, Georgetown had as many lost fumbles as touchdowns—seven. Hoya Blue never got to bang their Pots-n-Spoons in celebration of a 100-yard rushing game, a 100-yard receiving game, or even a 200-yard passing game. In both of their home victories this season, the Hoyas have been outgained by their opponent.

Hoya fans did get to see two home victories in 2006, the same number as during the MSF's opening season. However, whereas 2005 saw a thrilling 18-point comeback victory over Fordham on Homecoming weekend capped off by a last-minute touchdown pass as well as an overtime victory over Duquesne in a driving rainstorm, the 2006 season witnessed the rather unusual spectacle of a 7-0 victory over Stony Brook in which the Hoyas amassed only four second half first downs and entered Seawolf territory only once in the final two quarters.

A 24-21 come from behind victory over Marist at the 2006 Homecoming that cribbed liberally from the Fordham 2005 script was an uplifting end to the current season. Yet it scarcely concealed the obvious toll the season had taken on the Hoya Blue diehards that stood in the lower rows of the MSF; despite a veritable offensive bonanza of 309 total yards, chants of “Shotgun Draw!” more than held their own against the fifteen renditions of “That's good for another Georgetown…FIRST DOWN!”

Those renditions have simply been too few and too far between this season.

If most Hoya Blue die-hards view Georgetown's style of play very much with tongue-in-cheek, this is hardly a good sign for those other groups of fans I once outlined in a Generation Burton piece—from “try-hards” to “hard-sells” to “hardly-evers”. 7-0 victories are a hard sell indeed.

Stars

If there had been a Georgetown basketball equivalent of the “Shotgun Draw!” chant, I suspect it would have arisen out of the offense run during the 2002-2003 season. Amongst a starting lineup of individuals playing out of position (Tony Bethel), too soon out of the gate (Brandon Bowman), or without their head screwed on straight (Wesley Wilson), one player stood out—Mike Sweetney.

“GIVE THE BALL TO SWEETNEY!” went the (cleaned up) version of the cheer, yelled with great force and invective from the student section at each tedious possession. Surely if only we could find a way to feed Big Mike on every possession without fail, we'd never fail to lose a game. Twenty five point games, double-doubles, and fifteen trips to the free throw line— these achievements were expected of Big Mike as much as they were celebrated.

Somewhat paradoxically, in the year in which his team's outlook was the dimmest, Mike Sweetney's star shone the brightest. Without a share-the-wealth offense in the mold of John Thompson III's Princeton-inspired system, or complementary scorers to ease the interior burden, a lottery pick resume was built on the strength of “GIVE THE BALL TO SWEETNEY!”

This is not to minimize Mike Sweetney's basketball acumen, nor his immense offensive production during his third season at Georgetown. Rather, I point this out merely to illustrate that even on a mediocre team, a single star player or a singular performance can be a selling point for fans. Indeed, most fans of the 2002-2003 Hoyas will likely confess that seeing what was always, deep-down, assumed to be Mike Sweetney's final season in the Blue and…ummm…White was their primary motivation for attending games. For better or worse, Mike Sweetney was the 2002-2003 men's basketball team.

“THROW THE BALL TO HESTER!” the student section at Kehoe Field yelled on October 23, 2000. In truth, Craig Esherick may have been stealing pages from Bob Benson's playbook. On this fateful Homecoming Day, the Blue and Gray racked up 595 yards of total offense and 57 points thanks in large part to football's aerial equivalent of pounding the ball into a muscular power forward on every possession.

Gharun Hester until this day was most widely known to Hoya fans for a brief shining moment on the basketball court the previous March. In the third overtime of a first round NIT game against the University of Virginia, walk-on Hester walked off the bench and delivered a decisive three pointer to seal the Hoyas' 115-111 victory.

That Gharun Hester was a walk-on basketball player should be a hint as to the particular advantage he exploited as a wide receiver. After the Butler game, Georgetown quarterback Dave Paulus told The Hoya: “If I can scramble, and the defense has to worry about me, and I've got a 6-foot-4 All-American receiver downfield —yeah, we definitely compliment each other.”

Much as Mike Sweetney would later exploit his ample rump to post up countless Big East opponents, Hester used his basketball frame and exceptional reach to pluck any and every Paulus pass from the sky and convert them into touchdowns. In this game, Gharun hauled in nine receptions—most on lob passes—and school records of 271 receiving yards and 5 receiving touchdowns. In the process, he became a bankable star attraction for Georgetown football fans.

If Gharun Hester is the Mike Sweetney of Georgetown football, then Luke McArdle is its Jeff Green—a versatile superstar capable of hurting opposing defenses from nearly any position. McArdle, who starred at wide receiver and kick returner from 2000-2003, is Georgetown's career leader with 4,629 all-purpose yards, and can make a reasonable argument for being the Hoyas' most exciting player in recent memory.

Like Hester and Sweetney, McArdle's star shone brightest in big games. In a 42-20 victory over Cornell in 2003, Georgetown's first game against an Ivy League opponent in 66 years, McArdle returned two punts for 88 and 56 yards (the former a Georgetown record) to set up Hoya touchdowns. At the end of the day, Luke had set Georgetown's single-game record for all-purpose yards (263), and had written his name into the school's career record book as Georgetown's leading punt returner (821 yards) and all-purpose gainer (4,053 yards at the time).

A year earlier, McArdle had starred in perhaps Georgetown's most important victory in the Division I-AA era, a 32-31 come from behind win over Bucknell marking their Hoyas' first Patriot League triumph. Though the honor of catching the game-winning pass went to Walter Bowser, McArdle clearly earned most valuable player honors, catching a school-record 14 passes for a career-high 188 yards.

Though Georgetown has not had a winning record on the gridiron since 1999, the Patriot League era has been far from forgettable for Hoya football fans thanks to the efforts of memorable stars such as Gharun Hester and Luke McArdle, not to mention idiosyncratic characters like the shifty Alondzo Turner, the diminutive Kim Sarin (Georgetown's single season rushing leader), and 28-sack man Michael Ononibaku.

This is to suggest: fan support for the 2006 Georgetown Hoyas has not suffered solely because of a poor record—this is hardly a new development in the Patriot League era, and indeed growing pains were somewhat expected in Kevin Kelly's first season. I believe instead that as much as exciting victories, Georgetown fans are missing the chance to see consistently exciting players such as skill position threats Gharun Hester, Luke McArdle, or even defensive superstar Michael Ononibaku.

Recently, I participated in HoyaSaxa.com's Football Roundtable, which sought input on a range of issues affecting football culture at Georgetown. A particularly revealing question was one that on the surface didn't appear to have much to do with building support for the football team: who is your player of the year so far this season, and why?

Two of the five respondents singled out senior defensive end Alex Buzbee. Two others (including myself) split the award between Buzbee and linebacker Chris Paulus. Only the final respondent, Hoya Blue Communications Officer Matt Kamenski, chose to include an offensive skill position player, wide receiver Brent Craft, although Matt also nominated Buzbee.

Both Alex and Chris are standout players and more than deserving of the honor of being a team player of the year by any statistical measure. As of the writing of this article, Alex leads the team in sacks (4.5) and tackles for a loss (11), while Chris is the team leader in tackles (54.5).

Yet the fact that only one offensive player is even on the radar in the discussion of team MVPs (and even then perhaps Craft is only there by default, as Kamenski gave an MVP for offense and defense) is a cause for concern. Though Alex Buzbee and Chris Paulus both have legitimate MVP credentials, their contributions to the team are decidedly workmanlike.

In other words, Buzbee and Paulus play efficient football, not sexy football.

This is unquestionably a good thing in the long-term for Georgetown football, as efficiency is the hallmark of any successful team. In the short-term however it poses a dilemma—how does Hoya Blue promote a team whose star players make crucial contributions that are often difficult to appreciate. With Gharun Hester or Luke McArdle, this was an easy task—there was a strong likelihood that if you came to Kehoe Field or Harbin Field on a given day, you'd see a touchdown pass or a superb highlight-reel catch. Often, Hester, McArdle, and later even Sarin provided sparks for offensive explosions. These days Buzbee and Paulus, by contrast, are the glue that holds together the wall that is Georgetown's defense in a series of low-scoring slugfests.

The lack of sexy football is most pronounced when one examines the offensive statistics of Georgetown's skill position players. Sixteen Hoyas have at least one pass reception thus far in the 2006 season; however only four have caught more than the 14 Luke McArdle had in that historic victory over Bucknell. What's more, only one Georgetown receiver (Brent Craft) has more receiving yards on the season than Gharun Hester did in the single game against Butler in 2000.

Replicating the breakout 1,000 yard rushing campaign of Kim Sarin has been a tough task as well for Georgetown. Though freshman running back Charlie Haughton was recently named Patriot League Rookie of the Week, his season stats are relatively modest—227 yards on 47 carries. Nonetheless, those numbers are good enough to lead Hoya running backs in net rushing yards.

The most instructive case of skill position anonymity however is the Georgetown quarterback carousel.

The quarterback is easily the most iconic position in football; half of all Super Bowl MVPs have been quarterbacks, and the QB of any top rated college football team is almost assured of candidacy for the Heisman Trophy. To see a single snapshot of a signal caller is to immediately identify the heart and soul of a school and its fans. The story of the 2006 BCS National Championship Game can be summed up in the image of white-clad #10 Vince Young tiptoeing into the corner of the Rose Bowl end zone. Likewise, an image oft plastered across sports weeklies this college football season has been another #10—Troy Smith, the quarterback of undefeated BCS #1 Ohio State.

Another #10 calls out the signals for the Georgetown Hoyas. More accurately, he calls out the signals most of the time, certainly more often than at the start of the season. Perhaps the quarterback carousel including him and Ben Hostetler is the source of fan confusion. For even at the final home game of the season last weekend against Marist, multiple fans—Hoya Blue diehards who have attended every game to this point—were heard to ask midway through the first quarter:

“Hey, which one is that playing quarterback?”

It's not Matt Bassuener's fault that he isn't as recognizable as fellow #10's Vince Young, Troy Smith, or still another 2006 Heisman Candidate and media darling—Notre Dame's Brady Quinn. As the sometimes-maestro of a conservative offense that relies on few advance passing routes, Bassuener fits the role of decision-maker far more often than play-maker. It is certainly logical that the offense which gives us the “Shotgun Draw!” gives us few superstars.

Yet the extent to which the skill-position-by-committee approach to the Georgetown offense has affected the team's visibility is starkly visible from time to time, even beyond the student section.

After The Hoya wrote its editorial suggesting a basketball-based Homecoming celebration, one editorial board member, Jeff Planchard, published a response in the following issue [“Homecoming Tradition is Indispensable at GU,” 10/27/06]. While Planchard admirably argues for preserving the historical tie between football and Homecoming, he makes it explicitly clear on several occasions that he is at best a lukewarm follower of the football team. The most telling excerpt is the following:

As insulting as this may be to some, while I can name all of the starting basketball line-up, the name of the starting quarterback of our football team escapes me. In fact, I'm not sure I could name a single person currently associated with the team in any capacity.

Planchard assumes that he isn't the only Hoya who experiences this difficulty—an assumption I would certainly agree with. However, that an individual who is ostensibly a strong supporter of the football team, at least on a theoretical level, can't name a single player is downright alarming.

But it is, at least in my opinion, the single biggest problem facing anyone interested in building a football culture at Georgetown. Promotions work best when they can promote a specific entity; in the case of sports, a start player or coach is often the target. This is why most Georgetown basketball fans can sing the chorus of “Heart of a Hoya,” written in tribute to 7'2'' center Roy Hibbert. It's the same reason Hoya Hooligans sing “Feed the Schramm and he will score” and speak of Brian Wiese's “magic hat”. It's the same reason We Are Georgetown shirts have the Roman numeral III on the back.

Stars are born through a variety of means. Consistent all-around play can boost popularity, as was the case with Luke McArdle. Superior statistics attract attention, as Mike Sweetney proved. Finally, a single shining moment can have a supernova affect, instantly transforming a once anonymous or under-the-radar player into the focus of fan affection. The combination of Survivor and a Starbucks jingle skyrocketed Roy Hibbert to stardom, but not before his buzzer-beating dunk defeated Notre Dame and prompted the first student court rush at the MCI Center in three years.

Think for a moment—who caught the game-winning touchdown pass against Marist?

(The answer is at the end of the column.)

Suspense

If only someone would search through the GUTV archives, surely they would find a copy of the Georgetown-Butler game. A workhorse filler program on the campus cable channel during the spring of 2001, the 57-56 shootout is far and away the most exciting game the Hoyas have played over the past decade. It featured 1,106 yards of total offense, five Georgetown single-game offensive records, a 14-point Hoya comeback, a 17-yard game-tying touchdown on the final play of the game, and a game-deciding gamble on a two-point conversion in overtime.

Needless to say, back in my freshman year I treated it like the Georgetown-Duke game.

If Georgetown-Butler was football's Duke game, the Hoyas' first ever Patriot win over Bucknell two seasons later resembled Georgetown basketball's triumph over Syracuse last February. Both broke ignominious streaks—it had been four years and five games since the Hoyas had squeezed the Orange, while GU football had suffered 13 consecutive losses to Patriot League foes since announcing their intent to join the conference.

Yet the Bucknell game ought to stand apart because the game itself could stand alone as a classic. The Hoyas were never seriously threatened by the Orange last February at MCI, and coasted to a satisfying but ultimately somnambulant 68-53 victory. On the afternoon of October 26, 2002 however, Georgetown put together a second half performance both satisfying and suspenseful. The Hoyas scored all 32 of their points after halftime, twice rallying from 17-point deficits, and capped a frantic 81-yard drive featuring perhaps the most drawn-out quarterback keeper in history on a 4th and 5 with a 19-yard touchdown pass to Walter Bowser with 13 seconds remaining to secure a 32-31 victory.

The truth is, Georgetown football has had more than its fair share of suspenseful finishes over the past decade, including the twin one-point wins over Butler and Bucknell, winning a Homecoming game 15-13 on a blocked PAT return, coming six seconds away from defeating an eventual I-AA national runner-up in Colgate, consecutive last-minute 24-21 Homecoming victories in the past two seasons, and a famous overtime victory over Duquesne in a driving rainstorm before dozens of shirtless and freezing Hoya Blue members. Indeed, one wonders if Bob Benson could have shared some of his end-game magic with Craig Esherick.

Strangely though, the almost yearly return of “Suspenseful Football” to the Hilltop fails to build any significant buzz amongst students. It seems almost illogical—if Hoya Blue's go-to strategy for promoting men's basketball centers on showing film of an exciting victory over Duke that climaxes on the final possession of the game, why have they never capitalized on a myriad of examples of last-possession magic from the gridiron Hoyas?

There is a difference between the twin 24-21's and the double-B's (Butler and Bucknell) that is instructive in uncovering the reason why suspenseful games haven't translated into more fan interest at Georgetown. It has to do with one of the previous two elements of on-field performance I've discussed—style.

The Butler game was an offensive shootout reminiscent of a video game. The Bucknell game featured an epic comeback and several clutch conversions by the Hoyas. Both games are memorable as much for their result as for their quality of play. If Hoya Blue had a tape of either game, suffice it to say, they would both be re-watchable.

One factor that characterized the Fordham and Marist games, by contrast, was frustration. Just minutes before Georgetown embarked on the drive at the beginning of the 4th quarter that cut the lead to 21-16, they'd squandered a golden opportunity to put points on the board in the red zone. An 8-play, 56-yard drive had reached the Marist 6-yard line, when Matt Bassuener fumbled away the football and seemingly all of Georgetown's accumulated momentum.

This time we'd run The Demoralizer ourselves.

The Fordham game a year before actually produced a larger comeback that the Bucknell victory. That Georgetown was down 18 points to begin with however was a result of the type of alarming bad-luck that is often sarcastically celebrated with student section gallows humor. In the space of 1:20 late in the first half, Fordham capitalized on a touchdown then two fumbles on the following three Georgetown plays to build a shocking 21-3 lead that the Hoyas spent the remainder of the game recovering from.

To put it simply, though each of the games mentioned was suspenseful, their psychology was different. Students seemingly prefer plots involving pulling out a close victory, rather than pulling one's self from the fire.

One of the most fascinating quotes I received during my research into this topic came from a dedicated Hoya Blue volunteer. Asked about what might be the cause of continued student apathy towards football games despite gains in support for other sports (such as soccer and volleyball), this particular fan suggested the following:

“People want to see a good game…they don't want to see a game where the outcome is pretty much a foregone conclusion.”

This is a fan that has attended just in the past two seasons an overtime victory and two double digit comeback wins at the MSF. How could they possibly conclude that the outcome of football games is a foregone conclusion?

That the football team has a record of 6-14 thus far over the past two seasons is a possible explanation. But I don't think it's an accurate one. Georgetown hasn't had a winning record since 1999, but that hasn't precluded the Hoyas from playing exciting games from time to time, or student attendance from occasionally ebbing and flowing. Why don't students come out on the chance that they'll see another thrilling finish?

I believe it's because…in the absence of a compelling style of play, and recently in the absence of memorable skill position players…what students believe to be a foregone conclusion about Georgetown football these days is that it is boring.

“The team shows flashes of improvement,” wrote Matt Kamenski in the Hoyasaxa.com Football Roundtable, “but they are still prone to the same mistakes that have plagued them in recent years.”

I agree with Matt, and am continually frustrated that the Hoyas always seem just a baby step away from putting a positive run together on the gridiron. But we both soldier on as Hoya Blue diehards.

Of course, greater in number though they may be this year, Hoya Blue diehards—and their positive view towards the future of GU football—are still by far the minority on campus.

For the vast majority of campus, the question becomes: why spend three hours outside hoping for a last-second victory (when victories come only approximately 1/3 of the time) when the first 2 hours 45 minutes of the experience are so excruciating?

That's why “Shotgun Draw!” is such a funny phrase. It is simultaneously a rallying cry for dozens of football die-hards and a recognition on their part that they're more than likely wasting their time at the MSF.

Georgetown's two home results this season are a perfect illustration of the attitude of most student fans. The come-from-behind 24-21 Homecoming win is actually closer to the norm for Georgetown football if one looks at recent history. However, to listen to the responses of most students when asked about football, you'd think the majority of our football victories resemble the 7-0 stalemate we fought against Stony Brook this fall.

There is sadly little Hoya Blue can do to fix the problems of Style, Stars, and Suspense as they pertain to Georgetown football. Those fixes will only come with time. What Hoya Blue can do however is work on something of a pseudo-S: the psychology of student fans.